Josh & I used to talk about how we wanted a house full of children. Five, maybe. I just knew we’d have them all by the time we were thirty. What were we thinking?! After Ella was born, we negotiated and decided three sounded better. Then Taz arrived. I know that every child is different and that your life changes drastically with each one. Ella was a learning experience because we had never done it before. Sophie was a learning experience in a completely different way. She is challenging and causes you to question even the best parenting advice. She is the kind of child that inspires birth control and helps you decide that two children feels just right!
She is a whirlwind. She came in quiet, but she is anything but. She’s energetic and fiesty, her laugh is infectious and she is always smiling. She is almost always happy, requires very little sleep and is very opinionated. She is definitely a morning person. From the moment her feet hit the floor, she’s singing and dancing and being a “pwincess”. She makes up lyrics to life and sings about whatever is going on around her. She poses for pictures and says “of course, your majesty”. She is the most thankful person you have ever met. She seriously thanks you for everything… “thank you for my breakfast, momma”, “thank you for groceries”, “thank you for my bath”. She loves our dog, Beemer, and talks about her often. She asks my parents if they’ve met the dog before (obviously, since she’s ten). She wants to sleep with her and feed her and follow her around, even though B tries to avoid Taz at all costs. She is so proud that she can climb into the bathtub by herself now. She is so independent these days and wants to do everything by herself. She drinks two gallons of milk a week. Her favorite thing to eat is spaghetti-o’s and she plows through them with abandon. She loves to talk about her bests… “Carson Riley is my BEST friend” and “you are my BEST girl”. She likes to give princess kisses and tell you that her favorite color is pink, except when it’s purple. She loves to dress up. Almost every day when we get home, she strips down and dresses up like a princess. I wash an insane amount of laundry because she changes clothes five or six times a day. She is an absolute joy, the happiest of children, the one that is so stinking adorable you have to leave the room to laugh after you put her in time out. Everything she does is funny, even when she’s in big trouble. You couldn’t discipline her if you wanted to because she grins her way through everything. She has an incredible sense of humor and uses big words in context. She says “situation” and “competition” and “impossible”. She struggles with L and R and even TH sometimes. She has the sweetest voice and sometimes I lay with her dreaming up new topics of conversation so that she won’t stop talking. I hate it when people correct her and I hope she says “Wumineews” (Lumineers) and “wike” (like) for a very long time.
She is the most unpredictable child, so it shouldn’t have surprised me at all when her third birthday dawned in much the same way. I never once considered that the weather wouldn’t cooperate when planning her outdoor tea party. Every single plan I made revolved around the fact that we would have the party in the woods; it was set in Wonderland, after all. I started to panic on Saturday when the forecast called for rain, but by the time I went to bed they were saying the chances were slim for our area and I started to rest easy. If Taz has taught me anything, it’s to never relax and assume she’s doing what she’s supposed to. I woke up on Sunday morning to a grey sky and a near guarantee of rain for the entire day. There were picnic tables and chairs set up under the dogwood trees at my parents house. There was an arbor to mark the entrance to Wonderland, handpainted mushrooms and a white rabbit. There was green grass and flowers and… mud puddles. I called my mom at 6:15 on Sunday morning to ask her what in the world we were going to do and her response was “the sunroom is empty, the bathrooms are clean and your daddy is cleaning off the porches”. Y’all, that man is a saint. By the time I got there at 9 o’clock, he was soaking wet and moving furniture in the rain. If I ever doubted that he’s as crazy as I am, his exact words to me were “Do you think we should the swap out the rugs (in the sunroom and dining room) so that it matches the party a little better?” I think he even considered uninstalling a chandelier for a moment because it was in the way. We spent nearly five hours moving furniture and rearranging almost every room on the ground floor to accommodate our guests and he did it all with a smile.
Sophie had a wonderful day. She was surrounded by her family and sweet friends and never even noticed that we were partying inside. She dressed up like Alice and twirled around in her fancy skirt. She squealed that she was three and touched every little thing on the kids table as she inspected it. She opened presents and told everyone thank you and beamed when we sang her happy birthday. When the last guest left and I looked around at the familiar path of destruction she left behind, I could finally breathe a sigh of relief and admit that everything was perfect. Perfectly unexpected, perfectly unpredictable, perfectly loud and crowded and absolutely beautiful. Just like my Taz.
Happy Birthday, Sophie Kae. You are my best girl.
